- Elite admissions is completely random. A total crap shoot.
- All the slots are taken by athletes, legacies, developmental cases, and URMs. A middle class white kid with no hooks has no chance.
- Full pay OOS kids took my spot st the flagship state U.
Choosing an actual plant would probably have improved your chances …
Sorghum, for example, would make for a desirable admit.
I think the list is somewhat mocking people. Just my opinion. April is an emotional month for both parents and students. I am sure there has been plenty of tears shed this month. I know many that didn’t get in had blemishes somewhere in their apps. I know my D19 did and got rejected by two ivy’s and a top20.
But this is also the month that many students and parents will have to face the reality that the student won’t get to go to their top choice or even maybe their top 3 choices. Many of the kids on this board have worked their tails off. They have had sleepless nights. They didn’t go out like many kids do in HS. They didn’t blow off assignments or take the easy classes. Sometimes they came up short and made the dreaded B in the class and it didn’t matter if it was an AP class. Some kids even didn’t take classes they might have been passionate about so they could take the AP class to boost their GPA. Some got a score on the ACT or SAT and knew it wasn’t quite good enough and they buckled down and prepped for it only to make the same score again.
Many parents on this board want the best for their kids and would do anything to help them achieve their dreams. But reality sets in and you have work and you can’t help them all the time. Or you have multiple kids and can’t devote all your attention to one kid. Most parents don’t make enough money to send their kids to academic summer camps that cost $3-6K.
Then there is the money aspect. For many families the funds just aren’t there even if they did get into the dream school. We are quick to point out that we should have been saving more and much earlier. Most of all of us knew that. Some of us could never fathom the costs would rise so quickly. But we all had to make hard decisions during the last 18+ years. Should a stay-at-parent have gone back to work earlier. Should that parent taken more of a professional job making more money but getting home at 6:30 every night. How would the kids get to and from all the activities if both worked a crazy job. Should the parent never have stayed home. Should the bread-winner parent worked more hours to get that promotion to make more money but never see a child’s game or performance. Should the parents have not gone on that vacation that one year. When you are dog-tired should you had made dinner more often and not ate out. Should you have not gone to so many movies. Should you have given up that hobby of yours to save money. Should you have nixed travel sports to save money.
At the end of day we do try our best as parents. We know could do better and we know our kids probably could do better. Sometimes there is a little luck in involved, but in the end we are only human. The world won’t end because said kid didn’t got to this or that school. The world won’t end because said kid isn’t the most famous {insert job here}. You play the cards you are dealt and you make the best of it. In the end I hope my children are happy doing whatever they do. Oftentimes the excuses help us cope with the bad news. We will get past it and move on with life.
@gpo613 apologies the intent was not to mock but to highlight the inconsistency, frequency and misuse of the explanations, and sorry for your daughter’s disappointment. We do in fact all want what’s best for our kids and every last one deserves credit and respect for having worked their buts off.
“Oftentimes the excuses help us cope with the bad news”
Once again you are using the term excuses I used explanations. I have no problem with them being employed to ease disappointment with the exception of those that diminish others. When people say this group or that type took my spot or suggest it is rigged or random it is stated at the expense of someone else’s child that did get into a school.
For instance how would you have felt if your daughter had been successful at ND and you read people saying it wasn’t her hard work but legacy status that got her in? Many of the explanations on that list are similarly hurtful of others but somehow those that are disappointed feel they are able to lay claim to a higher morale ground in that it helps relieve the pain. Perhaps but it also causes pain.
With that said I share your hope that all of these kids wind up being happy and that not getting into a specific school winds up as their greatest disappointment during long and productive lives.
I think a thread on reasons or justifications on why one got into certain colleges when others with similar or better stats didn’t get in would be far more interesting. lol IMO, most of the reasons offered might have some truth to them. We will never know.
To continue the theme of three posts above - nearly perfect SAT and ACT, never a B, the most challenging curriculum offered, 8 5’s on all 8 AP’s, All-State Orchestra, President of a very legitimate charity (with more events to go to finish out the year strong) and maybe the nicest kid on the planet. I’ve probably described many of your kids as well and I’m sure I’ve described many who did make the cut, but he no make cut a few Thursday nights ago. Just put a deposit down at a school that may actually turn out to be “better”, but there’s still a depression permeating throughout our home. Any parental tips for a parent. I’m almost sick about it even though I shouldn’t be. There are two wait listings, but not expecting that to happen.
Thanks.
OneMoreKid- I am sure you know this but your kid sounds incredible… his college won’t be what defines him! Nor does it define those that got into their dream schools.
I hope the disappointment passes quickly.
- When he cures cancer I'll be able to say "See?!!!"
- I play the Bassoon but they needed a Contrabassoon player and my parents wouldn’t pay the $29k to get me a decent one.
I hear the “random” excuse a lot. But the (very) few unhooked kids that I have known who got into HYPSM had something above and beyond the perfect grades, ECs etc. That they also had multiple acceptances from others in the same tier means the element of randomness is not the predominant element.
Long time CC lurker here. After following college admissions very closely the past two years in preparing for my oldest D19 to apply, my focus is on the T10-20 schools and the UC system because I know so few unhooked students who apply to or have been admitted to HYPSM in the past two years (I know of plenty athletes admitted, but that’s another issue…). Both last year and this year, when I look at the kids that don’t get into T10-20 and even the UC admissions the admits vs denied absolutely have some randomness. These are not the ‘just high stats on paper’ kids but they are like the student described in #46. And it’s not just D19’s HS, or public vs. private; talking with close friends as to what’s going on at their high schools in our same county, and having the benefit of naviance results, counselors admitting they are scratching their heads…I’m not saying the kids that get in to these schools are undeserving - they are! But most T20 schools fully admit that they could replace many of admitted students with equally capable, deserving candidates. Something that tilted the scale in favor of one vs another is not necessarily identifiable or quantifiable but may have come through by chance, such as having a great interviewer or a distracted/disinterested one, being evaluated against multiple apps from one’s high school to the same college program or none, and obviously, admission officers are humans who will interpret essays and rec letters with their own slant. I don’t feel it’s possible to say that a holistic approach to admissions will result in a candidate’s file being interpreted exactly the same by any given AO/admissions committee compared to its pool of applicants that year. I believe this is why so many kids shotgun the top 20 schools these days and here in CA, the top 4 UC’s. My D19 did not follow this approach and applied to none of HYPSM, passed on applying to the two ivies she visited because while she liked them, she knew her odds of admission were not worth applying, and she only applied to two UC’s. She had the blessing of being able to visit every school she considered applying to, however. That was an advantage that worked out for her. She definitely earned her way into participating in the lottery of admissions to T20, but she (and we her parents) know darn well that there was a degree of luck in her ticket being pulled…
@2ndthreekids Luck (or good fortune) is not the same thing as randomness. A given kid might be very lucky to be selected by an HYPSM school - lucky to be say a piccolo player applying in the year that the orchestra’s piccolo section was severely depleted. Lucky to be applying as a Classics major just when the school was trying to boost it’s Classics department. Lucky to be from a state or ethnic group that is very underrepresented at that school, and so on.
But the point is that the accepted students are each chosen for a reason or combination of reasons. If it were random that would mean the student was selected for NO reason - just randomly selected like ping pong ball numbers that pop up in a lottery draw. The problem that we outsiders face is that we are not privy to the deliberations that go on, and we don’t get to know the reason(s) that actually cinched it for a given applicant. Thus, the selection process is not random, but to us it looks random.
Statistically speaking, “random” means that all possible choices have an equal chance of being selected - like numbers in a lottery. But we know that’s clearly not the case. A quick look at the acceptances plotted across a scale of grades and/or test scores shows that’s clearly not true. Applicants with high grades and test scores have a much higher chance of being selected than ones with lower grades and test scores. Thus, the selection is clearly not statistically random. We are just left to wonder what the actual deciding selection criteria were among the top applicants who all had great grades and test scores. But unknown criteria is not the same thing as no criteria.
My response has been “their loss” and then move on. It says I’ve got your back and you’re awesome and they just couldn’t / weren’t able to see it. I’ve used with waitlisted and also not enough merit / financial aid to make it affordable. But a good backup plan is a must. I also might be tempted to gently ask “Did you really want to go to that school? Or did you want to say that you went to that school?” I think if there were a ban on discussing college plans a number of people would be comfortable with different plans. And that would make a good Twilight Zone episode – every time someone tries to say where they’re going to college a loud bullhorn sound comes out of nowhere and drowns out their reply Or in the online world, a big black box appears over the college name. Oh the frustration when that comparison can’t be made!
@Scipio - point taken, but when you’re on the receiving end of those decisions, without access to all the information, then I don’t think it’s completely off base to feel or describe the process as “random.” Perhaps “hit or miss” is a better descriptor, but I’m not sure there is value in parsing words.
@momprof9904 - yes, kids admitted to HYPSM schools are usually quite extraordinary in some way. But jump down a level or two, and you’ve still got lots of unhooked kids who are very qualified and feel the process is “random” when there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason as to why they were wait- listed at one school and accepted or rejected at a comparable school. It seems natural for people who are curious to try to figure it out why.
The term “random” suggests that the schools don’t share a common set of traits and attributes they are looking for beyond good grades and stats. It implies the students unique abilities and talents don’t factor or sway the ultimate decisions, but instead luck takes over. The lottery example is often invoked. College applications are by no means a lottery when you consider that the same individuals often win the “big prize” multiple times.
Consider the frequency with which during RD rounds successful students have several high end acceptances to choose from while others are often shut out entirely. I know there are exceptions who are “one and done” but that doesn’t seem to be the norm. To the contrary it appears that the elite schools tend to identify the same students as standing out repeatedly in spite of their varied criterias. Conversely, the often discussed candidate that is denied from all elites contradicts the concept of randomness as the same application is eliciting the same negative results.
Highly accomplished, talented and smart kids can and are frequently rejected from the most elite schools, but the ultimate repeated success of some students contradicts the notion of randomness in the process…however it often leads to claims that the system is rigged. (Ironic but rigged and random are opposites but often expressed by the same people as causes for results).
If a lottery produced a result in which the same person consistently won such claims of “fixed” would be justified. Of course that is because of a lotteries random nature. In admissions however the applicants can and do influence the result. Those that catch the interest of an AO at one school tend to resonate with multiple schools and those that don’t simply don’t.
College admissions are imperfect but they are neither random or rigged in my opinion and experience and to suggest they are both simultaneously defies logic.
“How is listing the most commonly referenced explanations (you used the term excuses) mocking? Are you suggesting these assertions aren’t made frequently? My intention was to consolidate them in one place to provide a perspective on both the grain of truth in each and the often mutual exclusivity of several coexisting with some levity sprinkled in.”
The Aunt Becky explanation does come of as mocking or making fun of people who are going through rejection. And the timing, as others have noted, makes this mocking poor form.
@Nocreativity1 This is an interesting observation. Every year I see profiles of applicants to don’t get accepted while others with similar profiles get multiple acceptances (to highly selective schools).
@theloniusmonk The “Aunt Becky” comment was intended to encompass light heartedly all those who suggest their individual kid was affected by the scandal. I am sure you have read some? Such as “don’t tell me the system isn’t rigged, I just saw Felicity Huffman on the news”. While I wasn’t mocking such assertions then are in fact absurd.
Repeating the assertions of people who “are going through rejection” isn’t mocking them. Their words or themes are theirs (not mine) and as only listed didn’t suggest judgement. That was left to the reader.
@Rivet2000 It simply comes down to the profiles not telling the entire story.
@Scipio, point taken, but:
You say, “Statistically speaking, “random” means that all possible choices have an equal chance of being selected - like numbers in a lottery. But we know that’s clearly not the case. A quick look at the acceptances plotted across a scale of grades and/or test scores shows that’s clearly not true. Applicants with high grades and test scores have a much higher chance of being selected than ones with lower grades and test scores”. Yes, obviously…and it’s just as obvious that there are a far larger number of applicants with equally high grades and equal test scores during an admission cycle to a highly selective university than spaces. Then…
“We are just left to wonder what the actual deciding selection criteria were among the top applicants who all had great grades and test scores. But unknown criteria is not the same thing as no criteria.”. Hmm. Let’s say my D19 was admitted simply because after applying all the measurable factors possible, the admissions officer/interviewer/had fond memories of having the same summer job that my daughter has. Or maybe the only students admitted from D19’s high school for the past 5 years were male, and she stuck out as a female applicant this year. I could list 20 other unrelated reasons that might have tipped the scale for my daughter, all of which are unknown to me, but I think there is no repeatable or discernable method or predictability in determining what that criterion was. Hence random:). Again, I am not saying that the entire college admissions process is random, and sure, there are students that are probably even shoo-in’s to any top 20 school, but I think it’s a fallacy for me to think that my D19 had some extra special secret sauce that made her stand out from several others applying from her high school.